Pat Boone Recalls His Darkest Day (Part two of Dan’s interview)

Tuesday, June 19, 2001, was the worst day in the lives of veteran American entertainer Pat Boone and his wife, Shirley, for it was then that they received the shocking news that their eldest grandson, Ryan Corbin, then 25 years old, had fallen through a skylight on the roof of the apartment building where he was living in Southern California, and came extremely close to losing his life.

His skull was crushed as he fell three stories to a cement floor. Many thought he would never awaken from the deep coma of his mind. Then, there was the dreaded fear that, if he did survive, he would, at best, be in a vegetative state.

But then, on hearing the news, my ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and many other media outlets and individuals, including veteran TV host, Larry King, launched prayer campaigns for Ryan, whose mother is Lindy Boone Michaelis, one of the four Boone daughters, who lives in Coto de Caza.

While on a Larry King show, Pat Boone and Lindy, talked about Ryan's recovery, healing and wellness as though it had already taken place and Pat shared with the Jewish host about the “power of prayer and faith.”

To get an update on the story, I recently caught up with Pat Boone, who was mysteriously wearing a kilt (but more about that later), at the 9th Annual Pat Boone and Friends Golf Tournament at the Dove Canyon Golf Course in Orange County, California, to benefit Ryan’s Reach (www.ryansreach.com), a non-profit set up in honor of his grandson, who continues to recover from his terrible accident.

I began by asking Boone to recount what happened to Ryan on that dreadful day, and he replied, “Ryan was engaged to be married in November and had just graduated from Pepperdine University with honors, had written his first screenplay. He wanted to be a writer, or maybe producer, and was handsome enough to be an actor, but that was not his goal.

“He went up on the roof of the building in the western part of Los Angeles where he was sharing a room with two of his buddies from Pepperdine, until he was to be married. It was a hot June day and they went up there with towels and a boom box to hear some music and also took something cool to drink. They went up and then through a door onto this roof and there was a skylight set there which was a very large rectangular white Plexiglas sheet that allowed light into the lobby of this apartment building.

“Certainly Ryan never intended to, but he was wearing flip-flops and he must have stubbed his toe and got too close to the skylight and sort of turned his ankle and Steve, a buddy who went up with him, had turned to close the door that they’d just come up through, and he then heard a crash and Ryan was gone. He had fallen some 40 feet through the skylight to the concrete floor below.

“Steve called the paramedics and also Shirley and, thank God, the paramedics were there in just a very few minutes and picked him up off the floor where he was lying in a pool of blood and was unconscious. They thought he was dying and was in the throes of death. But thank God, again, they gave him electrical shocks to try to get his heart pumping and then took him to the UCLA Medical Center emergency department.

“Shirley, on hearing the news, was right there when the van was bringing him in and the motor was still running and she saw one of the paramedics who had strolled out and was lighting up a cigarette. She said to him, ‘I think you just took my grandson in there. How is he?’ The guy shook his head and said, ‘Don’t get your hopes up lady. It looks like he’s gone.”

Pat Boone then said that at that moment, his wife said she felt she heard a voice, which although not audible, was distinct, and she knew it was from the Lord. It said, “He will live and not die and declare the glory of God.”

Boone then said, “We eventually found that it’s in the hundred and eighteenth Psalm. We didn’t know it at the time, but we have clung to those words now for the past 12 years.

“Ryan was in a coma for seven months and it’s been a long laborious process to reclaim him, but he’s so far beyond anything the doctors thought would ever be possible that and he works so patiently with the therapists. He’s still six feet four and weighs 210 pounds and is great looking with a good sense of humor.”

When he was first rushed into the hospital, he was in extremely critical condition with multiple internal injuries, severe internal bleeding, also multiple brain injuries and was not able to breathe on his own. The doctors did not expect him to live.

A story posted by his father, Doug Corbin, at www.ryansreach.com/ryanstory.htm, said, “Over the course of the first week in the Intensive Care Unit, it looked as if we would lose him. He was in a deep coma, his blood was not coagulating, he was on maximum ventilator support, he had to have his spleen removed, and he was unresponsive to outside stimulation. For our family, it was the toughest week of our lives.

“For weeks, his blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature were very unstable. In addition to having his spleen removed, he had four surgeries performed while at UCLA Medical Center a tracheostomy, a surgically implanted feeding tube, surgery on his sinus cavity, and surgery to repair his jaw which was fractured in two places and broken in two other places. He developed pneumonia and began ‘storming,’ a result of his brain injury whereby he would sweat profusely, grind his teeth, have wild fluctuations in his body temperature, become very rigid in his upper extremities, and experience a very rapid heartbeat and respiratory rate. Each day tested our family's faith in ways it had never been tested before.

“But then, Ryan began making progress. His kidneys, once on the verge of needing dialysis, returned to normal. His liver, which took a severe impact from the fall, recovered quicker than anyone had hoped, He was successfully weaned off of the ventilator and began breathing on his own. His internal bleeding stopped and he recovered from his surgeries. In short, Ryan made enough progress at UCLA Medical Center to be discharged on July 31, 2001.

“Ryan was moved to a ‘sub-acute’ facility in Orange County, California, that we believed, at the time, would be able to care for Ryan's needs. Unfortunately, Ryan was not ready to be out of the hospital. On August 11, 2001, Ryan went into a very severe ‘storming’ session where he became extremely dehydrated and his body temperature soared to 106.5. He was rushed in the middle of the night to a local hospital in Orange County where the doctors were able to successfully hydrate him and stabilize his body temperature. Their quick and appropriate actions very likely saved Ryan's life a second time.”

Since that time, Ryan has continued with his recovery at his mother’s Coto de Caza home, and Pat Boone then shared with me that a short video of Ryan taking his first steps is now posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvbU5bAr924 for all to see.

“In it you see him taking tortured, but purposeful steps, on a walker,” he said. “And the more he does that, the easier it will become and we still believe he’s going to walk and be normal and certainly verbally declare the glory of God.”

Pat Boone then explained why Larry King, a Jew, took such interest in Ryan’s story by featuring it on his then CNN show.

“Well, you know, the Bible says in First Corinthians that the gentile seeks God through wisdom, but the Jew requires a sign, like Gideon, and others of the Old Testament characters,” he told me. “They said, ‘If this is really from God, then give me some assurance that I’m hearing from God. Give me a sign, preferably miraculous.’

“And Larry has said, and I knew this, that he has talked with ministers like Billy Graham, Jim Bakker, and Oral Roberts, and even performers like Naomi Judd, and others and also to me and said, ‘I envy you people with your faith. I really wish I could have it, but for this Jewish kid from Brooklyn, I’ve never made the connection.’

“And he and I got to know each other well and I know now why this difficulty was for him. It was because his own father, a Jewish immigrant, dropped dead in a plant in a factory where he was working when Larry was about 7 or 8 years old and this left his mom and two boys to raise.

“So for him, the question he always asks is, ‘If God is all knowing, all loving, all powerful, why does he let terrible things happen to good people?’ What he’s asking is, ‘Why did God let my father die and leave my mother and us boys all alone to make our way when he could have stopped it?’

“And that’s a question that so many ask and I’ve given him a couple of answers as have others, but so far it just never has connected for him, as he says that he is still searching and wishing he did have a connection that he could have confidence in.

“So when he heard of what had happened to my grandson, he instantly had somebody call me and ask if I’d like to come on his program and ask people to pray and millions have done so and that is why we have seen Ryan continue to make this great recovery.”

But after the serious part of the interview, I then raised the question of why he was wearing a kilt, and he laughed and said rather cryptically, “Well, I am playing golf and this is what all serious golfers wear, so I’m serious today.”

Still trying to figure out what he meant, I went onto the Internet and found this at http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/golf.htm, “Golf originated from a game played on the coast of Scotland during the 15th century. Golfers would hit a pebble instead of a ball around the sand dunes using a stick or club. After 1750, golf evolved into the sport as we recognize it today. In 1774, Edinburgh golfers wrote the first standardized rules for the game of golf.”

Then I found this: “The medieval Dutch word ‘kolf’ or ‘kolve’ meant ‘club.’ It is believed that word passed to the Scots, whose old Scots dialect transformed the word into ‘golve,’ ‘gowl’ or ‘gouf.’ By the 16th Century, the word ‘golf’ had emerged.” (Sources: British Golf Museum, USGA Library.)

So there you have it, Pat Boone was not only playing for his grandson, but also making his personal tribute to the Scots, who first invented the game.

And by the way, if you want to learn more about Ryan’s story, his mother Lindy Boone Michaelis, has just released a book (with Susy Flory) called “Heaven Hears: The True Story of What Happened When Pat Boone Asked the World to Pray for His Grandson's Survival,” published by Tyndale.

Heaven Hears is an unbelievable story of answered prayer—and it’s not over yet. This book will inspire you to look for answers to prayer and to see God’s miracles.

If you would like to see my recent His Channel Live TV interview with Lindy about her son and her book, please go to: http://www.hischannel.com/BackQ/1000/1009/.php

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 72, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award-winning journalist now living in Lake Forest with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 50 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) (www.assistnews.net) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network (www.kwve.com) in Southern California, which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live (www.hischannel.com), which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries.